


Kiss With A Fist

by Patchouli (lifelesslyndsey)



Series: Brothers Grim [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben POV, Kissing, M/M, Post-mortem, adoptive incest, last episode spoilers kind of, no deaging, they're not really related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 10:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18071675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifelesslyndsey/pseuds/Patchouli
Summary: The first thing Ben does upon realizing he's corporeal is kiss Klaus square on the mouth. This is, of course, right after punching him in the very same mouth, so Ben can sort of understand Klaus’ confusion.





	Kiss With A Fist

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into English available: [Reaping the Benefits](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18951541) by [snakesnbooks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakesnbooks/pseuds/snakesnbooks)



> pretty much cannon except when they go back in time, they don't de-age. 
> 
> Ben POV

The first thing Ben does upon realizing he’s fully corporeal is kiss Klaus square on the mouth.  It’s probably not a very good kiss - he’d died a sixteen-year-old sheltered shut-in. Not a whole lot of kissing going on. But he goes for it without really thinking about it.  Just---grabs him up and lays one on him, catching the taste of Klaus tongue against his own when he gasps.

 

This is, of course, right after punching him the very same mouth, so Ben can sort of understand Klaus’ confusion.  After all, Ben is confused and he's the one who did it. He blinks down at Ben, big grey eyes stunned wide open. “Uh.” Bens hands are curled into his drab, grey sleeveless jacket. “Dude.”

“Fuck,” Ben thinks, a little madly, before he blinks out altogether from the shock of it.  

 

He doesn’t really go anywhere when he’s not with Klaus. He doesn’t exist anywhere else. He knows why and he’s half certain Klaus must know why too.  After all - the other ghosts don’t follow him. They can be conjured, yes, but Klaus rarely does it so willfully. Rather, they appear as they are, where they haunt.

 

Klaus never conjured Ben.  Rather, Ben’s haunting Klaus.

 

Unintentionally, of course. That...doesn’t really change anything.

 

When he flickers back, there’s no sense of time between then and now, but he can tell it’s passed without him.  Klaus is huddled with the rest, looking more squirrelly than normal as he insists why locking Vanya up is a terrible idea. The nature of her powers, new and unknown must be terrifying after all.  He catches Ben’s eye, and his gaze is bright and wild.

 

***

 

It isn’t until after everything - until Klaus really did conjure ben, and animate him, pulling at the Horror inside of him like a puppet on a string.  For all that Ben had zero control over them - he’d never felt they were more tamed than when Klaus took over. The dust hasn’t even settled on the theater around them when Five is catapulting them through time and when the dust settles on that ----

 

Well. Ben’s not corporeal anymore, so what does it even matter?

 

So they don’t talk about it.

 

Until they do.

 

Ben’s perched on the edge of the bathtub while Klaus shapes a goatee that Ben’s only a little bit jealous of. He had no facial hair,  barely had hair on his balls when he kicked rocks. There’s a joint hanging out of Klaus’ mouth - hard won, in terms of sobriety. He’d argued that it was fucking legal, and he could hardly fucking OD on it.  It wasn’t like it numbed him completely and the high wore off faster than aught else. Shockingly, it had been Diego to rally for him, saying if weed was what kept him off the other shit? The hand-over was worth it.  Besides, he’d reasoned, the worst Klaus did when smoking weed was eating literally everything in the fridge, and a little weight couldn't’ hurt him.

 

So there’s a joint hanging from his lax mouth. He sucks in sharp little bursts, letting curling, hazy blue twists of smoke escape the opposite corner of his mouth.  Klaus has a steady hand as he shaves his cheeks clean save for the tidy lines framing his mouth. He hadn’t worn a beard since before Vietnam, had kept the lone mustache like some kind of homage to Dave.  Ben’s not sure how he feels; the goatee had always made Klaus look sharp-edged and almost dangerous. Deadly, like one of Diego’s knives. It isn’t a bad look, not at all, it just made Klaus look...Grown.

 

Sometimes Ben is hungry to be grown.  Some times...he’s hungry for other things.

 

Everything about Klaus is shades of grey, his hair, his skin, his eyes.  Everything, but the pink of his mouth, and Ben...Ben’s only seen that color pink in a late summer sunset.  Klaus is pretty, and maybe Ben only think so because Klaus is pretty much both the beginning and end of his whole world. Maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome. Who the fuck knows? Ben thinks Klaus is pretty and he can’t remember if he thought that way before he died but he also can’t imagine he didn’t.

 

He watches Klaus hold the joint between two long fingers like a simple cigarette and pat off the remaining shaving cream from his face with a towel in the other.  There’s a mist to his eyes, but nothing so frightening to ketamine or cocaine. This one - this one Ben doesn’t mind. It doesn’t make his head spin as he fights to cling to consciousness, his own or Klaus’s, it didn’t matter anymore.  It’s hazy but sweet, and he thinks he must be high too, maybe Klaus is projecting, as he watches his brother brush his teeth with a rapt sort of attention common in people rubbernecking car crashes.

 

Klaus wipes the toothpaste from the corners of his mouth with the back of the hand holding the joint. He takes a drag, sucks it in real deep until Ben’s lungs burn in sympathy. He has his hip cocked against the sink, the sharp cut of his hip bones a distraction from his pink mouth, where they peek out over the low rise of his trashed black jeans. He’s not wearing a shirt. Ben hides his gaze behind the shadow of his hood.  

 

“So,” Klaus says, blowing smoke directly into Ben’s face. It makes his eyes burn, and his lungs itch and that alone should be a warning but Ben’s head is still swimming. “You kissed me.”

 

“I---”

 

Klaus drops to his knees in front of Ben and Ben holds his breath very stupidly.  He---he is definitely high. He can’t seem to look at any one thing, and his hands feel clammy and very, very real. “You punched me in the mouth,” Klaus says again, and they’re eye to eye like this, it’s all very unsettling. “And then you kissed me. With tongue.”

 

Which. What! “ _You_ were the one that used tongue.”  As soon as he says it, he realizes what’s happened.  It’s a very Klaus bait-and-switch tactic of getting someone to admit. Ben’s seen Klaus mind-fuck a number of people with similar tricks and feels foolish for falling for it. “Fuck.”

 

“Okay, yeah. That part was me.”  He brings the joint to his lip but last minute turns his hand and holds it out to Ben.

 

Ben...Ben doesn’t move. He holds himself very still. “You know I can’t.”

 

Instead of arguing, Klaus just presses the joint to Ben’s mouth and God---he can feel where it’s wet, still damp with Klaus’s spit and he sucks in a surprised little smoke-filled breath. He doesn’t cough or sputter, but he does let it sit in his lungs for a long moment before expelling it all in a rush. “ _Fuck_.”

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t figure it out sooner.” The intensity in Klaus’ eyes is almost too much. They’re too bright, where they sear into him. “I’m a shit.”

 

“How are you----” Because Klaus is doing it. It’s all Klaus. It was Klaus the first time and it’s Klaus now.

 

“Asking me how I do this is like asking where the Monsters go when they’re inside you.” Klaus doesn’t look away, just stays right where he is between Ben’s thighs, where he’s kneeling on the floor in their dirty, downstairs bathroom. “It’s better if we don’t actually know.”

 

“You can do it on purpose now though?” He tries...He tries not to sound hopeful. It’s probably not easy and Ben  - well. He doesn’t want to get used to it.

 

“Yeah. Yeah - I think I can.” He takes another hit off the joint, even as his other hand moves to cup Ben’s jaw and when they kiss, Ben breaths in - shotgunning, his mind supplies. That’s what this is called.

 

For a brief moment, in Klaus’s hand - Ben is a real boy.

 

This time when Klaus slips his tongue into Ben’s mouth, he’s a little more ready for it. He still trembles where Klaus holds him in a single hand. They’re---he’s fucking kissing his brother. He’s kissing his brother in their childhood bathroom after having been dead several years. He’s still dead. But also here. He can taste the mint of the toothpaste, and feel Klaus’ fucking spit where it glides over his bottom lip and it’s hot - like, physically fucking warm- and it’s been so long since Ben’s felt anything but nothing at all.

 

He’s---

 

He’s fucking _hard_.  His dick his hard. He’s real enough to achieve the blood flow for that to happen. And yeah - he’s been turned on as a ghost before, but the sensation is mostly horribly uncomfortable. This is---This is---

 

Klaus kisses him a little deeper, joint still caught in his fingers. He turns Ben’s head - he _manhandles_ him to the correct angle - and licks right back into his mouth.  Ben knows that Klaus has experience. Ben has witnessed a lot of that experience, unfortunately.  Klaus is a very, very good kisser.

 

“You were real and your first instinct was to kiss me,” he says when he finally stops kissing Ben.  There’s nothing accusatory in his voice, although he sounds very, very smug. “Got a little torch burning for me baby brother?”

 

“We’re the same age, asshole.”

 

“Sure we are.” Klaus kisses him again. Ben is caught between his hands like a fluttering fucking bird. “I can do this all night long.” God - and he can. Ben knows he can. 

 

“You’re my whole fucking world.” It comes out grumpy, but painfully honest all the same. “You’ve been my world since we were kids. And I punched you first.”

 

A hand cupping his cheek sinks inside of is hood, fingers tangling into Ben’s hair. “You’re really real,” he says like he isn’t making it happen. “Fucking wild man. Let’s make out more. That was going rather well, I think.”

 

“Wait--Really? Just like that.” Because it should be more complicated. They’re brothers. Also, Ben is dead. “This is kind of fucked up.”

 

“Yeah, but fucked up is what we do.” He pulls Ben’s hair and it hurts in a way that makes his blood sing. Nothing hurts anymore. Ben feels his toes curl. “You’re my best friend you know.”

 

“It’s gotta be Stockholm, right? Right?”

 

“Maybe,” Klaus agrees because when nothing terrible is happening, he and Ben actually get on quite comfortably. “But I’m shockingly okay with that. Can I touch your dick? Like, I am physically capable of touching your dick, but is that something you’re into? Because it is something, as I'm sure you're aware of, that I am very into. Not yours specifically, although that too, given the opportunity, I think---”

 

He’s been sixteen for a while now and sixteen is a terrible fucking age. He feels his face heat - and the warmth will never not be wild. No one’s ever touched his dick before. He hasn’t in fucking years. “Um---”

 

It’s that moment that Diego burst in, something or another falling dead silent off his mouth as he stops, standing awkwardly halfway in the bathroom. “Uh---Uh. I--- What.”

 

“Baño ocupado, mi hermano,” Klaus sing-songs, flicking ashes directly onto the floor. “Unless you want to join.”

 

Blushing is a very stupid thing  that Ben does not miss at all about being alive. “Klaus!”

 

“Join what?” Diego asks, sounding very strangled. “Because it...it looks like you’re making out with our dead brother. Hi....Hi Ben.”

 

Ben waves, rather stupidly, and shrinks back into the deep shadows of his hood. “Yes, yes, join or leave.” Something electric blue crackles over Klaus’ skin and Ben feels it in his fucking balls like he’s never felt anything else. Klaus feels...powerful. Dangerous. “In or out, Nipple Ring.”

 

Almost on reflex, Diego cups his left pec, before scrambling out backward from the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him. “This family is fucking weird!” He calls out.

 

Klaus just laughs, as he stubs his joint out on the sink and lets it rest by the taps. “Where were we?”

 

“This isn’t normal,” Ben argues, but Klaus is slipping off his hood and kissing across his jaw and he hasn’t felt actual touch in so fucking long that...Well.

 

Klaus stops the kissing, though his hands remain. He leans back, still a little hazy-eyed, still a little wild. “I’m game if you’re game, brother mine.  It’s not like you haven’t watched me jerk off.”

 

“I looked away.”

 

Klaus laughs and moves to press his cheek to Ben’s cheek, the new scratch of his beard against Ben’s smooth skin oddly pleasing. “Not every time, you didn’t.”

 

And fuck - that’s true, and he knew that Klaus knew that but he was hoping he’d have the decency to not call him out on it. “I died a _virgin_.” Being dead was mostly boring. Sometimes his curiosity got the best of him. Whatever. Klaus put a lot of weird shit up his ass, sometimes it was hard not to gawk.

 

“Understandably, I am not your first choice, I know,” Klaus says, with that air of diplomacy that never makes any sense in the situations he chooses to employ it. “But I’m the only one who can and honestly - I kinda liked it when you watched---”

 

“I fucking knew it,” Ben says, vindicated and flushed. “You always---”

 

“I always what,” Klaus asks, with narrowed eyes when Ben can’t finish. “What did I always do, Benny Boy.” His hands have left Ben’s hair in favor of gliding artfully up his spread thighs and no one - _no_ one - has ever touched him there.

 

“You always came harder,” Ben says in a rush, eyes fluttering closed. He can feel-----He can _feel_.  And it was true. When Ben watched - those times that Klaus definitely knew he was watching - Klaus would come so hard he’d shoot straight across his own fucking face and then he’d just lay there panting, messy and careless. He’d fall asleep like that, dick out, on top of his covers where Ben couldn’t escape the image. Fucker.

 

“Whatya say, Benny?” He leans back just enough to really look Ben in the eye. “You wanna make out or what?”

 

He’s dead, okay? He died a sixteen year old virgin. Klaus is his own life. And yeah, maybe it’s Stockholm, and maybe Klaus is his brother but Ben does actually want to make out with him. He’s been dead a while. “Yeah, okay,” he murmurs, shuffling forward to meet Klaus’s mouth.

 

It’s kind of fucked up but...Well. That’s kind of their family motto at this point.

**Author's Note:**

> I just think this would be a very reasonable response once the dust settles. Also Klaus is fucking hot. And an absolute scene stealer.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Kiss With A Fist by Patchouli - A Podfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363444) by [Dirty_Corza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dirty_Corza/pseuds/Dirty_Corza)




End file.
